SOUTH CAROLINA, USA — The father who spearheaded dozens of search efforts for his missing son in Arizona has announced his candidacy for United States Congress with a campaign focused on helping families of missing people.
David Robinson said he led 49 searches in the desert near Buckeye, Arizona for his missing son, Daniel Robinson. During that time, David Robinson saw firsthand the challenges both loved ones and law enforcement face in missing person cases.
It's that experience with his son's disappearance that David Robinson was thinking of when he announced his run for U.S. Congress in his home state of South Carolina.
"I had to do something when I started seeing some of these challenges that families face when they look for their loved ones," David Robinson said.
Daniel Robinson was last seen June 23, 2021, and his Jeep Renegade was found nearly a month later rolled over in a ravine by a rancher, four miles from the site. Daniel Robinson had moved to Arizona in 2019 for his first job.
When he organized searches for Daniel Robinson, David Robinson said he was able to "pull volunteers from all across the country."
"Nobody had any restrictions on what race you were, or what's your religious beliefs or your political standing, everybody joined together," David Robinson said.
That's why he wants to run for Congress: To bring people together to solve the missing person "crisis" David Robinson believes the United States has.
"We talk about the opioid crisis. We talk about some of the other crises," David Robinson said. "But this is a crisis, we have over 600-700,000 people go missing in this country every year. Over 2,300 every day."
Daniel Robinson's cell phone was found near his Jeep, but accessing the phone took time and energy away from the search effort. Lobbying for quicker, easier access to a missing person’s technology from tech providers is one area David Robinson said he will address if he is elected.
“We need to be able to open some of that up,” Robinson said. “We have to go talk to the telecommunication people to make sure that we open some of those privacies and some of those restrictions that are there, that that kind of put a handcuff on law enforcement. They need to act when a family is sure that their loved one is missing; we need immediate attention. We cannot wait to over 12 hours — or any hours — to act, because that’s time lost.”
David Robinson said his campaign will also focus on issues facing his district in South Carolina, such as freeing up funds for infrastructure improvement, but helping the hundreds of thousands of family members of missing people is one of his top priorities.
"My job is — as a citizen, as a person, as a constituent, as a father who's fighting for my son — is to do something about it. I cannot stand still and sit here and do nothing," David Robinson said. "My desire to run for office is to help families out there struggling with missing loved ones’ cases, also to aid law enforcement, and try to streamline the way cases are handled nationally."
David Robinson is planning an April visit to the Valley to make his case to law enforcement to run a criminal investigation into his son’s disappearance.
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